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The paper offers some reflections from Activity Theory to inquiry-based science education, particularly suggesting a learning context in which students have the opportunity to analyze the products of a certain scientific content in the popular culture (society) and in the culture school itself. As an example of such proposal, we describe and analyze the application of an inquiring teaching-learning sequence on the phases of the Moon to students during the final years of elementary school. Our results show that during the ten activities, the students not only elaborated a suitable model for the occurrence of the lunar phases, but also they developed meanings that surpassed school science, for example, when discussing works of art and astrophotographies, interviewing their relatives and correcting textbooks. In addition, there were unexpected outcomes that also permeated the school activity system as the emergence of activities in other disciplines and contexts.